Harlow Council give update on EV charging points across town
Lifestyle / Wed 17th May 2023 at 12:40pm
BACK in 2021, Harlow Council announced plans for EV Charging points around the town.
There were proposals for charging points in:
· Town Park School Lane car park
· Garden Terrace Road, Old Harlow
· Minchin Road, The Stow
· Tawneys Road, Bush Fair
· Tilegate Road, Bush Fair
· The Stow service bays
Then in September, we asked for an update (see article below).
And no win May 2023, we have asked for another update.
A Harlow Council spokesperson said: “Works on the EV charge points at Minchen Road in The Stow are completed and the points are live ready for public use.
Works at Garden Terrace Road in Old Harlow are almost completed. BP Pulse are carrying out some works as part of their final commissioning.
“For both sites we successfully secured funding. Shortly there will be an official launch of the new points (with the appropriate cabinet member) and further information on how they work and can be accessed”.
The more available in working order, the better for all in coming years. I wonder what the council's idea/plan is for people who want to have one outside their home, where there is a garden, then pavement/public walkway before reaching the vehicle on the street?? Plans should be in place as the time for needing these power points are getting closer.
Will the Council publish the cost per Kw to charge a vehicle? Will there be fast charging units? As the council have opted to use partners to install, will this be just ticking a box in providing at greater cost to its population? Answers please
What will be the penalty for parking longer than the time required to charge the car please ? Blocking the charging point preventing others from using it.
Make sure to navigate your way around the potholes to get to them!
The total number is just a handful. In the meantime Epping Forest DC are building a multi-storey car park just off the High Street with 50 charging points. Now that the Council own the Harvey Centre I hope that we will soon see many charging points in the car park there.
These charging points will be just another thing to target for the low life the bored & the jealousy of holligans. They will obviously cost mega bucks to install replace or fix. Who will be monitoring these charging points when the low life come out to play. The people who buy electric car should all be offered a point of charging within their own homes FREE of charge to charge their cars from their own electric, as after all this is the way the government etc want the world to be driving now & further into the future. Surely it would be saving money in the long run. If you can fit all these new smart meters for other things in life ie our electricity and gas plus water then surely this would be the right way to go. So as not to cause problems of queuing plus arguments among the drivers of these vehicles . If the petrol stations are going to be made redundant in the future then spend wisely on these charging points as the holligans will destroy them. Especially in Harlow!! Watch this space!!
People are having these installed at there homes as I do it, but there are so many restrictions ie they need there own driveway garage or dedicated space in some circumstances is aloud, they average around £1000 for an install depending on different customers situations problem is the government have taken away the grants which used to provide money towards the install. The delay in the install will more than likely be down to BP pulse rather then the council they have such poor service and have lost lots of contracts due to this they just can't provide the labour on a schedule. Its a great idea the council are doing but it's just not enough. The house where they can't be fitted need chargers fitted in there street which can be done they are being fitted in with lamposts in some areas, again the problem is there's not enough funding into the infrastructure.
For Alan Leveritt's benefit the chargers installed at both sites are slow 7KW. To charge a Kia Niro from 30% to 100% charge takes 7 hours 20 minutes. They deliver roughly 9.5% charge per hour. The first (from zero) and last 20% charge takes the longest to deliver.
Before Harlow Council polish their green halo, it should be noted that the council failed to deliver EV charging to four car parks. By contrast, East Hearts council delivered 54 charging points last June in Bishops Stortford and spent some of their own money to achieve it. See article https://www.eastherts.gov.uk/latest-news/2022/town-centre-multi-storey-set-13-june-opening
And in Welwyn Garden City there is a car park which has for at least a year about 40 charging points.
Unfortunately councils will need hundreds of thousands possibly millions of charging points to cater for charging of electric vehicles as it takes roughly 7 / 8 hours to achieve a full charge for your vehicle, unfortunately not everyone with an electric vehicle has an attached garage on their home or even a driveway so they can install their own charging point at their home, even if people still went ahead and installed a EVCP at home think of the chaos caused by charging cables and extension leads trailing all over the place if you can’t park outside your own home, people tripping up on them, arguments, fights you name it, pavement parking has become the NORM on any council housing estate now we’re faced with the possibility of electric cables trailing all over!!!!!! GOOD GOD who ever comes up with these schemes please think it through logically ( as I said before ) not everyone has a private driveway, so there’s say 50 EVCP at a multi story car park WOW!!!!!!! What do you do go there hopefully get one and leave your vehicle there and get a cab back home again returning hours later to retrieve your fully charged vehicle only to face an overstaying charge at said parking facility.
I've got visions of cables running down tower blocks. 😂
I visit the Stow at least 4 times a week. Haven't seen one car using any of the 4 EV charging points in Minchin Road car park since installation about 3 weeks ago. Taking 6 hours average to charge a small car, might not get much use.
Correction; in Minchin Road car park at The Stow each charging post can charge 2 cars. So there are 8 charging points. Takes up quite a bit of the car park which other cars are prohibited from parking in.
We need 1000 every year before 2030 , when all new cars will be electric.
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